One of the new features in the Mail app in OS X Mavericks is better integration for Gmail accounts. Although the so-called enhancements got off to a shaky start, Apple released a patch to fix a majority of the issues. After adjusting my Gmail settings to show my All Mail folders, things seem to be working pretty well for my Gmail accounts in Mail on OS X Mavericks - except for one nagging issue.

I am an email hoarder and prefer to archive my Gmail messages rather than delete them. Prior versions of Mail were great for this, as hitting the delete key would simply remove the Inbox label from any message that was selected - in other words it would archive the message. Unfortunately, in OS X Mavericks, the delete key now behaves differently, moving selected messages to the Trash.

Introducing Delete2Archive, a plugin for Mail in OS X Mavericks that brings back the old delete key behaviour for Gmail accounts, archiving messages instead of moving them to the trash!

Installation Instructions

Quit Mail.

Download the Delete2Archive plugin.

Extract the Delete2Archive.mailbundle folder from the zip file and move it to

~/Library/Mail/Bundles/

(where ~ indicates your home folder). To open the Library folder in Finder (it is hidden by default), hold down the Option key while selecting the Go menu, then select the Library menu item. If you don't have a Bundles folder, create one.